(recovery) Constant reoccuring nightmares about ex ideal love.

[Spare Chaynge]

Swim has constant reoccurring nightmares about his ex girlfriend and how unethical he was to her. They were the same age and dated from 15-20 years old. First love kinda thing.(he was only unethical to her once to this extreme, everything else was just little things that don't even come close to this)

Well swim and her had a messed up relationship, probably do the the life style of drugs. One particular night after a long binge of cocaine,alcohol and alprazolam(withdrawling from methadone) swim awoke in the middle of the night to find his gf messing around with one of his friends. He simply went back to bed on to much alprazolam to care. When he awoke the alprazolam had worn off. He was very angry and irrational so he asked her about it and told her to leave. She immediately began to shows signs that she really cared about swim and it was a huge mistake. Swim did not care. She would not leave so swim went and got a gun. While they were still in argument,Mainly her begging to be forgiven and to be allowed to explain swim then leveled the gun at her and escorted her out.

To this day swim thinks this was the Most unethical thing that he did in his addiction. He thinks about her 3-4 times a week. He has nightmares about going back in time and trying to change it only to have something worse happen. Of all the things he regrets in life this is the main one. He made his amends to her (she would not answer his phone call understanbly even though she seem it fit to call him out of the blue once a year or so.) so it was in a letter

Anyways this still haunts him a lot. Many of swims friends say things like oh you just pointed a gun at her it wasn't that unethical. swim truly believes he will burn in hell for this and deserves to. The emotional trauma he caused that girl good god he can not even imagine.

Anyone else suffer from this.
Swim does not think that the amends would help him in a situation like this. What will? Time? Its been almost 3 years. How can he get this girl out of his head? He did truly love her but its time to move on? I'm pretty sure she has.

[chillinwill]

One thing to remember Spare Chaynge: the things SWIY did in the past during his addiction is not the real you. Anyone that has ever been through addiction knows of some of the awful stuff they have done in their past that they wish they could undo. However, the world doesn't work this way. The best advice Red ROck can give SWIY is to move on. Try to make amends with her but if she isn't or doesn't want to talk, then move on. SWIY did what they could do and if the other party isn't willing to listen, then move on.

[thebige]

Hi SpareChaynge,drugs make people do strange things......love makes people do strange things.....mix them together and you will have strange fucking things.
In hindsight,this might not have been the best way to handle the problem,but that is how it went down so leave it alone.......
If it is bothering or interfering with daily life......try to bring some closure to it.
If you could contact this girl/woman,explain your actions and maybe apologize for your own sake as well as hers.
Just chalk it up to a lesson learned the hard way,a lesson that helps make up you and your life.Swim is positive that the future holds better moments to be dwell ed upon...........bige

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thought advice, contributes to the recovery community

[ex-junkie]

swim likens her addicted past to a movie she starred in. it helps to detach the reality of it all, because it isnt reality at all when you think about it. she even has another name for her addicted past. "mildred".

mildred is in no way a reflection on swim, and never will be. never can be. its not that swim doesnt care about her past, its the fact that she cant care. make peace with swiyself, and find solice in the fact that swiy has a conscience, knew what he did was wrong, knows he isnt really like that person he became that night. be thankful if anything, because there are people out there who dont care about these things, and do it all the time.

she wasnt for swiy. she slept with a mate. that is one of the ultimate betrayals, and if swim was in swiys situation, and had access to a gun, she would probably have pulled the trigger in the heat of the moment.

[Spucky]

Alprazolam is very well known for character Change to became very violent!
Many bad things happen "on" this Stuff!

Be lucky that swiny not killed her!

[Fight Club]

SC - your amends was sufficient. Now, how about forgiving yourself for this act? One of the reasons NIK gave up cocaine was the realization that he did some crazy fucked up shit when he was high, and his actions always hurt the ones he loved most.

As we mature, we realize that we can't live our lives that way any longer; especially when it only gets worse, not better.

Sounds like you have moved on. Let go of the guilt surrounding your past.

FC

[Spare Chaynge]

interesting development on this thread...the day swim posted this swim stopped having nightmares about it...swim occasionally still has dreams about her randomly nothing disturbing.. the interesting part is she e mailed swim recently, the first time in 2+ years.. asking if swim was ok, and saying that she had been having crazy dreams about me...(swim imagines they were me in trouble or in pain or something..guessing by her tone)
swim guesses this is just normal to dream about old friends.. what is not is the pain swim got when he thought about the situation.

thanks for everyone's responses.